The sunlight barely shone through the bright yellow tinted glasses when morning arrived. The unwilling participants would've lost all track of time if it weren't for the mental clock integrated in their body and mind and the watch possessed by some. It was hard to tell day and night apart when the atmosphere remained dim and mysterious by the passing hours.

"Morning," Jay mumbled as he entered the dining room. He found several others eating breakfast, which had been prepared without anyone's knowledge. "If we didn't have to play the games and risk our lives, this would've made a pretty good homestay."

"Except that we do have to play the games and risk our lives," Natasha repeated, pulling the empty seat beside her for him.

"Did you sleep well?" He asked, noticing the dark eye bag under her eyes. No matter how tough she may seem, he knew she wasn't mentally strong enough to face the games. It worried him.

"Shirley allowed me to use her bed, but I couldn't sleep," answered the girl who decided to sleep with a female friend to keep her company. "Oh, woe is me! I am too young to die. I haven't even made it to Broadway yet! I haven't even graduated yet."

"Tell me about it." Harvey was busy rearranging the plate in front of him, trying out different poses as one hand held unto his smartphone. "I am nearing my four million followers on Instagram, and they have to survive a whole day without my updates. Woe are they."

The others weren't exactly sure how to respond to his incredible and quite admirable narcissism. It took great skills to be so oblivious to the surrounding danger and be so full of oneself.

"So, does anyone have a good way out to escape?" Ashlyn continued last night's discussion. She finished her third round of toast while everyone else were still working on their first one.

"Once we get to the swimming pool, we shall see what options we have. Or else we can all take a swim and cool our heads off," Mark suggested with a grin. It was probably a normal suggestion, but the way he said things and smiled  had an untrustworthy connotation to it.

"Ha.. Ha... I am not getting in that pool with you unless my life depended on it." Ashlyn gave him a disgusted look.

"Ironic, considering we aren't the ones to judge what happens to our lives anymore," Mark shrugged and took a bite from his toast. No matter how frivolous he acted in front of others, inside he was just as scared and frightened as they were. But there had to be at least one person strong enough so the fear wouldn't overshadow the others.

Ashlyn shook her head, brushing her long locks off her shoulders. She picked up her plate and took it to the kitchen, assuming they had to clean up after themselves. But once inside the semi cramped area, she noted Shirley standing against a cabinet, anxiously biting her nails with a face so pale like she had seen a ghost.

"Are you okay?" The younger one asked worriedly, rushing over to set the dirty plates in the sink.

"Oh Ashlyn, I have to show you something." Shirley's voice trembled, terribly. She grabbed the younger one by the hand and led her to her knees. With arms quivering as if she had been trapped in a block of ice, Shirley opened one of the drawers and took out the steel bottle.

Ashlyn inspected the item, growing more confused when she saw the bunch of numbers and letters scribbled on the paper attached to it. She looked at her friend for an explanation.

"It's strychnine."

The revelation aroused a sudden panic and fear in Ashlyn's system. She may not know its effect scientifically, but she was a linguistic major who had to read numerous literature work as part of her assignment. Strychnine was no stranger in the literary world as it was commonly used to kill fictional characters off. It was a deadly poison.

"H- Has it been used yet?" She asked quietly.

"The bottle is half empty. Considering the first game is played in water, I am afraid the Game Master has infected the water with it." Shirley panicked.

"We got to tell the others."

"No! It will scare them!"

Ashlyn frowned, unsure what they were supposed to do. The elder was nearly broken down and it was such a tragic sight to witness. "Is it going to affect our body if it makes any physical contact with the skin?"

"No. It's only dangerous when we consume it," Shirley replied.

The two then stared at each other with an enlightening solution. They figured out a way to sabotage the Game Master's plan.

***

Oliver was in the living room, busy tinkering with the olden style TV as Ethan and Madison kept him company. Out of the entire mansion, the living room was the only place where the device wasn't upgraded beyond the millennium. Oliver was sure it had a reason behind it.

"Can you not change the channel?" Madison requested when Oliver had—for the twentieth time—accidentally changed the channel she was trying to watch. There was nothing wrong in enjoying the little pleasures in life as long as time permitted them to.

"Did a hidden mystery channel appear? Or anything relating to the Game Master?" Oliver asked, clearly having watched too much movies.

"Nope." Madison pressed the remote controller to change the channel back to the one she had been watching, but to no avail since Oliver kept messing with it. Finally she gave up and threw the remote on the sofa.

"We watched through 20 or so channels, all news related, and not one of them reported us as missing children or announced this as a kidnapping case. There is nothing being said about this House of Trap thing," she then whined. "Is this normal?"

"What if," Ethan swallowed as Madison gave him her undivided attention, "This entire show never existed and was just a bait to get us here?"

"But why would our teachers go along with it? They were the ones who encouraged us to join," Oliver questioned.

Ethan pursed his lips together, knowing he hadn't said the smartest thing. Maybe it was better to remain silent. After the small intermezzo, Oliver was back to messing with the TV, forcing Madison and Ethan to watch the flipping channels, until the second disturbance appeared.

"Guys! Guys!"

Everyone looked up from whatever they were doing and automatically gathered together in front of the staircase after the frantic cries from Shirley and Ashlyn.

"When are we going to play the game?" Ashlyn questioned.

"Considering we don't have anything else to do, we might as well do it now," Mark said.

"True. The faster we can figure out a way to escape this wretched place, the better," Bree nodded, convinced the garden or backyard could lead to their freedom.

"Yes! Then we can go home!" Ginny cheered gladfully.

"What if there isn't a way?" Damon interrupted.

Bree rolled her eyes and lazily turned to face her nemesis. "Can't you just shut up and stop being such a pessimist? What's wrong with trying to find a way out?" She folded her arms.

"Nothing." Damon smirked at her know-it-all attitude. "Except that this Game Master, whoever he may be, isn't dumb. He wouldn't go all the way to kidnap us here and force us to play deadly games if our escape route was as simple as finding a garden entrance. You don't know how a criminal's mind works, so you better shut up instead of giving others false hopes."

Bree's eyes darted towards Ginny, somehow sensing Damon was talking about the girl as the one being given false hope. Ginny was nearly in tears and looked like she could pass out at any moment.

"What's wrong with hope if it is what keeps us sane despite this lunatic trying to kills us off?" Bree asked him, tone rising in anger.

"It is more insane to trust your delusional make-belief happy ending we might not even experience," Damon spoke calmly. He knew it was that calmness in him that boiled her patience.

"Don't fight, please!" Madison stepped in between the two with her arms stretched to keep them apart. There had always been this invisible tension among them, and it could lead to a quicker downfall. "We should focus on the game."

"Right, the game," Shirley then remembered what she initially came to say. "Do not swallow any of the water."

"What? Why?" Harvey questioned.

Shirley bit her lips, conflicted whether she should relay the truth or not. But in order to keep them away from the paranoia, she decided they were better left in the unknown.

"Did you discover anything last night?" Mark then asked her, tone more serious.

Shirley nodded.

And that was all it took for them to easily believe her words. They were all on the same side, they guilelessly assumed.

Ethan showed them the location of the swimming pool through the window, and led them through the door which connected to the backyard in order to reach the swimming pool. Once they reached what was supposed to be the outdoors, the twelve came to realize how terrifying their prison cell truly was.

The open space was a good escape route, but as Damon had mentioned, the Game Master was a step ahead of them. Glass was used to build a wall around the entire surrounding with no entrance or exit except from the one they came from. Everything looked like a normal backyard with a bright green grass field, flower bed in beautiful array of colors, and trees that stretched out to the sealed off sky. But the truth was, they were like pesticides trapped within a greenhouse.

Harvey was the first one to take action as he took up a nearby shovel and banged the metal end towards the glass. It did nothing; no scratch, no riptures, not even the slightest bit of vibrations.

"We are screwed. We are sooo screwed!" Oliver pulled his hair and began walking around in frantic circles.

"The only way out is to do what the Game Master wants and play the game," Damon said as he headed towards the swimming pool not too far away. Soon, he was astounded by the peculiar sight.

The tiles were blue and pink in color, creating patterns of diamonds underneath the water based on the limited vision their eyesight had. There were multiple balls of steel spread across the floor of the swimming pool; each had some sort of a sensory button in the middle along with a strange symbol engraved on them.

"The zodiac sign," Mark spoke.

And upon closer inspection, several balls indeed had the zodiac sign drawn on them. Numerous others were close resemblances, but still fake distractions.

A medium sized countdown timer monitor was at the side of the pool. It was like the ones used in sports game, but customized in size to fit the Game Master's needs. Whatever they had to do, it had become a race against the time.

"Dear Lord, can't you do that later?" Bree questioned when she heard the shutter going off and noticed Harvey making peace signs for his selfie.

"My followers need to know how I'm doing," he argued, and the rest decided it was better to let him be.

"I don't understand what we're supposed to do. What are the rules of the game?" Ginny asked, looking at whoever still kept the mission card. Of course it was Shirley.

Three things to remember as you enter the aquatic chamber.
An allotted time is bestowed, to retrieve your assigned zodiac code.
An electrifying surprise will then activate, eliminating those who failed to locate.
Refuse to participate and what awaits you is a doomed fate.

"It's like Diving For Treasure," Ethan recognized the game. "We used to play it in the swimming pools a lot. Someone throws an object in the water and we have to find it."

"We had to find one item, but this..." Ashlyn trailed off, looking at hundreds of steel balls scattered through each other. It was like finding a needle in a haystack. "I don't even know how a Virgo symbol looks like"

"You're pretty much screwed then," Natasha uttered under her breath, and Jay quickly nudged her to stop it.

"What does the 'electrifying surprise' mean?" Ginny asked as she reread the card.

The others fell silent. If the mission card was as literal as it sounded, an electrifying surprise while playing a water based game was not exactly something to look forward to.

"Let's hope we never find out," Shirley answered, caressing the younger one's head.

Right at that moment, the digital countdown timer, which had been inactive, jumped to life and displayed a total of six minutes in big fat red letters.

"Only six minutes to go through all these? That's crazy!" Harvey muttered. But the rules were set and they had no one to complain to.

"I really don't wanna play this!" Natasha began making a scene, feeling the tears creeping in her eyes.

"Nat..." Jay softly called out to her, feeling sorry he couldn't do anything to stop her tears. He couldn't say it was okay, because it wasn't. He couldn't say it was going to be alright, because he was uncertain.

"Then just go and kill yourself," Damon said coldly. "If you're not gonna play, you're gonna hold up the mission for everyone else. We can't sacrifice eleven other people because of one's uncooperative behavior."

Natasha's lips quivered terribly, trying to hold back her tears from streaming down while grasping the harsh truth of Damon's words.

"One person had to die to save many before, don't be the one person everyone has to die for in order to save," Ashlyn told her with clear resentment in her tone. Like Damon, she just wanted the games to be over with as soon as possible.

Jay gave a light squeeze to the girl's hand, telling Natasha that at least she wasn't alone in this. And it helped when she properly faced the pool now.

Their eyes were all set on the timer and waited for the countdown to go off. Because with every passing second deducted, they were closer to death. They had to play the games well, whether it was to survive on their own or to help out. They had to win.

The time started counting down with no notice and displayed 5:59 next. As if a gun had been shot off to indicate the start, everyone did not hesitate to jump in the pool. Splashes of cold water stung their skin, but no one could complain about the freezing temperature. They had to focus on finding their assigned ball despite having no goggles.

"Is it alright for our eyes to touch the water?" Ashlyn questioned.

"Yes, as long as you don't swallow it," Shirley reminded everyone.

Ashlyn took in a deep breath and went underwater, keeping her eyes wide open despite the discomfort. Judging how no one tried to elaborate what the Virgo symbol looked like, she knew they had all started to play for themselves with barely any disregard to others.

Other players mimicked her movements and  completely dived underwater to get a better scan of the balls. With so many fake zodiac codes thrown in, finding the one they needed was a much harder task to do. The moment they picked one up, someone else threw theirs away. It was a total mess and lacked any proper coordination.

"I found it! I found it!" Ginny was the first one to yell out. Despite being the gullible one, this girl had incredible luck to find hers when the countdown had reached its four minute mark.

"Are you sure that's the one?" Damon asked.

"Yeah!" Ginny held the steel ball in her hand, curious about the weird sensory space in the middle. So she fiddled with it using her thumb, and suddenly, the top of the ball sprung open to reveal another piece of laminated paper hidden inside.

"Eight," she read the number of her paper and stared at Damon, completely puzzled.

"You should go up and wait," he then told her, making sure the girl made it to the top when others were still busy retrieving their zodiac codes.

"Found it!" Natasha yelled not long afterwards and held a ball above the water. She quickly opened it too and discovered the number two inside. She was relieved she found it.

"Me too!" Mark yelled along and joined the other two up shore. He was quite surprised to see his paper containing a the division symbol.

No one had to know Damon already found his. The sensory button at the middle must be a way to confirm whether one had found the right object or not. So when he placed his thumb there, saw the ball open automatically and retrieved a number eight, he carefully tugged it in his pocket.

Damon took another dive in the water, but not to find his own. He wasn't keen on trying to help others out. No, it was far from that, actually. He'd deliberately find someone else's zodiac code and keep it for himself. His eyes skillfully spotted a ball where a round circle with two upward pointing line was drawn. He was sure it was a zodiac sign, so he kept it.

"Oh my gosh," Oliver remarked when he noticed some weird looking devices planted inside the lamps located on each side of the pool. They were small grenades that wouldn't do enough harm on its own, but was enough to blow up the light bulb and create the... Electrifying surprise.

"We need to hurry! The mission card wasn't kidding. We're all gonna end up being electrocuted to death!" Oliver yelled in panic. He continued searching  and miraculously obtained his zodiac code in no time. Sometimes, panic helped him function better. As soon as he left the pool, he opened it and saw the number two.

"There's only two minutes left!" Shirley noted as she got out of the water. Her outfit was completely soaked and heavy as she moved around. But the moment her ball opened and showed the plus sign inside, she was assured she made it.

Others, however, weren't as lucky.

"I can't find it!" Harvey yelled as he took in another dive for the nth time. The countdown induced more panic, and his ability to act well decreased.

Ethan sighed in relief when he managed to obtain his, and wasted no time to retrieve a plus sign inside. He was about to head up and stand with the winners of the first game when he noticed Madison wasn't among them. So he turned around and sighted the girl looking around her in distress.

At that moment, he had a decision to make whether he would engulf in his own safety and forever dwell on the regret if the girl did not make it, or risk his own life in order to save her.

"One minute left!" Jay yelled out as he climbed out of the pool after retrieving his number four after an elongated period of time.

With a small sigh, Ethan swum to Madison. "You're pisces, right?" He requested a confirmation.

"Y- yeah." She was completely surprised when he had taken her by the arm and pulled her to the side of the pool.

"You wait up there and don't go near the water," he instructed her. Before she could protest, he had taken a leap of faith and dove inside the water, this time trying to find hers.

"Argh, I can't find mine!" Harvey yelled as the countdown continued ticking.

"Keep looking!" Bree told him.

As Harvey dove inside the water again, a scoff escaped from Damon's lips. He looked at the stolen ball in his hand, knowing it belonged to either Madison or Harvey.

Ethan had never tried this hard before, not even when he searched for his own. Time was running out, and he was responsible for someone else's life now. He met Harvey's distraught gaze underwater, but had no time to help him too. His focus was to find the sign of pisces.

"Thirty seconds!" Jay yelled out loud, hoping they'd be able to hear him.

They did. It did not aid them in their search. Awakened more panic? Yes. The hard part was their inability to separate the balls into the ones they had already looked through and the ones they never laid their sight on. Everything was a mess. Everything looked identical.

"20 seconds!"

There was literally nowhere else to look in this bottomless swimming pool that would soon become a graveyard to someone. He spun one more time, refusing to give up hope.

"15 seconds!"

Until finally, during the last few seconds, he saw it. The sign of pisces. He thrusted his body forward as agile as he could, extending his arm to grab the ball hidden between the fake distractions.

"10 seconds!"

"Maddie!" Ethan finally appeared out of the water. He lightly threw the ball to her direction, which she perfectly caught using her entire body. The girl was not stupid and pressed her thumb on the sensors like she had watched the others do. The ball opened up, and she also retrieved the paper: an equal sign.

"5 seconds!" Jay's voice was a pitch higher as he nearly yelped in panic.

Both Ethan and Harvey hurried their way to get out of the swimming pool. The big red letters on the countdown haunting them, the visible grenades inside the lamp alerting them, and their lives on the line.

Everything was a blur afterwards when Jay's voice verbally counting down started reaching the final three digits. Harvey scurried himself up from the pool as Mark and Oliver lifted him up. Ethan was aided by Madison who wanted nothing more but his safety. She pulled unto his slippery arms using all her might, panicked when his hand slipped and felt his body crash on top of hers. His feet barely lifted from the pool in time.

"One!"

The sets of lamps placed in equal rows against the pool edge burst in one explosive motion, sending sharp pieces of shattered glasses raining against their bodies. Smoke erupted from that loud disruptive blow and soon they heard a terrifying zapping. The pool was filled with an invisible static electric field that seemed harmless to the naked human eye. But when a leaf withered from a nearby tree and became the first object to touch the watery surface, they witnessed the painful truth hidden beneath. The steel balls remaining underwater began to experience a collected jolt of movement, conducting electricity through its material. Some blue sparks were seen around the leaf that instantly crippled into black pieces of ash.

"That could've been any of us." Natsha spoke, eyes in disbelief at what she was witnessing. She dramatically fell on her knees, and felt Jay's arms wrapped around her as he followed put. "We could've died!"

"But we didn't. We made it." Jay's voice quivered with every syllable he spoke. He didn't realize he had placed his arms over her head as they found comfort in each other's presence.

Ethan didn't realize he forgot to breathe due to the panic. He quickly removed himself from Madison and helped her get up. "Are you okay?" He asked worriedly.

But to his surprise, the girl responded with a hug he didn't see coming. Her body was cold and kept quivering against him. "I thought you almost died. Why'd you go to that extent? What if you really had died?" She was half yelling half crying now.

Ethan chose to remain silent, unsure what to answer. It was as simple as his desire to protect her and to have her live—to have everyone live.

"Did you all receive something inside the steel ball? I think we're supposed to solve an equation." Shirley now asked, chest and shoulders still heavily rising up and down from the panic.

"I got the number 3," Bree answered and looked at her paper quizzically.

"I have an X," Ashlyn frowned. "I am guessing this is a multiply sign?"

"I didn't find it," Harvey uttered. And at that moment, he heard a loud clash against the ground. His eyes lowered to the floor, and to his surprise, found a steel ball rolling closer until it softly tapped the side of his shoes. "Oh! Sign of Taurus!"

"I guess you found it after all," Oliver gave him a nudge, but not too hard in case if any excessive movement could push him into the pool.

"Yeah." Harvey stared at the countdown timer that reached zero. With his thumb pressed against the sensors, he uttered a proud scoff. "And the Game Master said we'd die if we couldn't find the zodiac sign in the allotted time."

"Was he just trying to scare us?" Ashlyn questioned.

"Maybe." Harvey shrugged with a smug grin. "But look at me. I found my code after the countdown hit zero and I am fine."

"Dude, your life is in greatest danger among us," Jay uttered unsurely.

"I am a miracle child," Harvey continued speaking and made a hair flip. This time he took the phone he had placed aside of the pool when he jumped in, and started recording a video message.

"Dear fans, this is Harvey Duncan. Despite the horrifying death threats given by this ridiculous Game Master, he has proven to be a bluffer. I was supposed to be dead by now, but look at me being healthy and al-"

The others let out collective gasps of horror when in a flash, an arrow was perfectly shot through his chest where his heart was located at. The long wooden arrow pierced through his skin, rupturing a part of his blouse that was drenched in red. The metal tip was covered in crimson liquid and pieces of meat or skin got stuck on it.

The phone and steel ball fell from his hand unto the floor as he lost his grip on reality. Everyone witnessed that petrified look of regret and dismay as his body bent forward to follow the flow of gravity into the pool that was now a big network of resistors.

With his mouth agape, the electric water had access to a more conductive part of the flesh. The fresh cut wound from the arrow shot created a damaging outlet for the electric currents. His muscles stiffened like a dead mannequin doll, throwing his body into agitated fits of jumping spasms. White fogs of smoke formed from the movement, and a burnt smell lingered in the air when red blisters appeared on the poor boy's skin and ruptured it apart from its flesh.

His opened eyes experienced the effect from the heat when his firm solid eyeballs turned into a soft moisture, dissolving into a thick liquid of white as it melted. His body, which was no longer functioning, continued to twist and jump into irregular shapes impossible for the human body.

By the time his body laid idle, whatever flesh remained of his corpse was burnt and black in color. The rippled water surrounding him was once again gentle in current and crimson in color.

The silence filled the air after the eerie zapping noise that would haunt their sleep at night. No one could believe the true horror of the games they were set to play. It was far worse than their most terrifying imaginations, and so realistic despite their desire for it all to be a fearsome nightmare.

Despite everyone's shock and inability to move, Damon was the one who neared the electrifying graveyard. He picked up the paper from the steel ball Harvey had dropped on the pool bed, knowing it was going to be clue to solve this equation.

It was a minus sign—similar to the life Harvey was reduced from.